Birthday Fun - Part 2

So on the day of my actual birthday, Kum took me out for brunch at... you guessed it, The Breakfast Club :) I was only just there the week before but there are so many yummy things on the menu that I could go there every weekend :)

Kum and his Eggs Royale

About to gobble up my Eggs Florentine.

I had decided to make my own birthday cupcakes to take to my dinner that night. But when I got home, I found this:

...Audrey had already made me this amazing cake :D

Sponge cake with cream and jam.

Birthday Dinner

For my brithday dinner, I decided to be a little different. Instead of just having a dinner with friends, I went one step futher and booked a restaurant with a karaoke room! :D I'd have to say that I have never actually been to a karaoke bar/restaurant before and I was a little nervous about whether everyone else would enjoy it. I invited everyone I knew in London (which was a total of 25 people :P) Some I knew would love singing, others not so much. But I've learnt, never underestimate the power karaoke can have on people :)

The restaurant, Sushi Hiroba in Holborn.

The restaurant is actually very popular. People line up for ages just to get a seat. The food is really good, the decor inside feels authentic and welcoming and the staff are friendly. Will definitely go back there again just for a meal. Unfortunately they don't cater for very big groups. The karaoke rooms were downstairs away from the public (which was definitely a good thing. Nothing worse than trying to enjoy your meal with people sounding like dying cows in the karaoke rooms :P). We had to eat in the karaoke room because I had such a large group of people which suited us fine.

People, including myself, felt a little nervous getting in front of the mic at first. But after a few drinks and a few warm up songs, everyone was fighting for the microphone :P By the end of the night, some of us had lost our voice from singing at the top of our lungs. My worries about people not enjoying themselves and not getting along definitely disappeared very early in the evening :)

Anna and Bharat

Nat and Kum

Audrey and Jake

Like parents, Audrey and Jake met all my friends, greeted them, talked to them, made sure they were comfortable and thanked them for coming. haha. Definitely something my real parents would do back home :)

Wern Yi and Jeremy

WY and I were trying to cut Jeremy out of the picture... clearly didn't do a very good job :P

My Coppermill Girls :)

Bottom: Amba, Bernadette and Rhian (Rhian, who said 'No, I don't sing' when I first invited her, was one of the best singers all night! :D Karaoke working it's magic :P)

Next to me: Amanda

Adam (Bernadette's boyfriend), Gerard and Anna (Bernadette's brother and sister). They had just come from having dinner with their parents.

Blowing out the candles :)

Everyone enjoying themselves

Something I'll miss when I go home - having all my London friends in one room :(

And on top of all that, Audrey offered to give me a birthday hairstyle:

Pretty talented huh? :)

Thank you those who came and celebrated my birthday with me. It was one of the best birthdays I've had :)

Birthday Fun - Part 1

I remember celebrating my birthday here in London last year and it was a very emotional time. Not only was I away from home, family and close friends, I also didn't have many friends over here at the time. Luckily, my adopted parents, Jake and Audrey and adopted big sister, Wern Yi, made up for the 'homesickness' I was feeling :) So this year was very different. I can't believe I've been here for nearly over a year and a half. Looking back, I have achieved so much more than I planned including meeting some amazing people who have become some of my dearest friends. I often try to think of ways of how I can pack them up in my suitcase and take them home with me :) For my birthday, Jake and Audrey took me to Gordon Ramsey's hotel restaurant, York and Albany. I still haven't figured out how to use my camera to take good photos in dimmed light so I don't have any nice photos of the food we ate. Unfortunately, I wasn't actually impressed with the food we ate. It could be because we ordered from a set menu as Audrey got a voucher from lastminute.com which was 25pounds for a three course meal. When I looked around at what people around me were eating, it looked a lot nicer :(

Welcome Dan and Lydia!

Met up with Dan and Lydia on the weekend at The Breakfast Club. It was so strange to meet up with them in London but I was excited to see some familiar faces from home.

My breakfast: apple and cinnamon french toast Lydia's breakfast: 'Green eggs and ham' - scrambled eggs with chives, ham and cream cheese and a side of wedges Dan's breakky: The Full Monty - bacon, sausage, black pudding?, eggs, hashbrowns, mushroom, beans, tomato

Pancake Tuesday

Pancake Tuesday meant pancakes for lunch, pancakes for dinner and pancakes for dessert :) At school, nearly every class decided to make pancakes and when there are left overs, it gets taken to the staffroom for us teachers to gobble up! Food that goes into the staffroom never comes out! :P Audrey, Jake and I had also decided to make pancakes that night. We made savoury ones for dinner and sweet ones for dessert.

The savoury fillings: spinach, cheese, chirizo sausage, mushroom, tomato and onion.

:)

Jake tucking into it.

Our sweet toppings: ice cream, berries, banana, lemon, butter, nutella, sugar, honey.

How many combinations can you think of? :P

Yum, yum, yum!

All Night Long

Happy happy birthday Anna :)

The 5th of March... definitely a night/morning to remember :D

The celebrations started off at a place called Fifty Five Bar and Lounge in Camden where I met the gang after they had taken advantage of Happy Hour (as you can tell by their red faces :P)

Dinner (at 9:30pm - 11pm) was at a little Japanese Restaurant (still in Camden) called Asakusa. It quite popular as we soon found out when Anna underbook. She booked for 10 but we ended up with 15 people and there were no spare chairs around. Let's just say we had a very intimate and cosy dinner together :P

I was intending to go home after dinner but Anna (by this point slightly more than just tipsy) wouldn't let me go home and I gave in seeing as it WAS her birthday :) So onto Electric Ballroom (no dad, there was no ballroom dancing here whatsoever! :P) I'm not a huge clubber but this club was sooooo much fun! It played the oldies and the goodies that everyone knew the lyrics too. People was singing (and shouting) at the top of their lungs (including myself :P) and dancing like they just didn't care.

Thank you Anna for an amazing night. I'm glad I stayed out!

Be At One

After the disappointing Chinese New Year celebrations at Trafalgar Square, we decided to have an early dinner and drinks. We made our way to a pub called Be At One near China Town.

Gary looks happy now... but this was before Kum decided to let his drink slip out of his hand and all over Gary. Gary was not impressed! :P

That night I was introduced to one of my now favourite cocktails - it has a different name depending on where you order it but I know it consists of Baileys, cookies and cream... and other stuff that makes it very yummy :) It's like a milkshake!